Samoa Statutory social-insurance contributions

What this value means

WHAT A PAYROLL ENGINE GETS WRONG IN SAMOA. 1. THERE ARE TWO CHARGES, PAID TO TWO DIFFERENT BODIES, AND THEY ARE NOT THE SAME KIND OF THING. The Samoa National Provident Fund takes 10% + 10% into the employee's own savings account; the Accident Compensation Corporation takes 1% + 1% into a pooled no-fault injury insurance scheme. Combined statutory load is 22% of wages — 11% employee, 11% employer. A record that serves only SNPF understates both sides by a full percentage point, and a comparison that reads 22% as "Samoan social security" misclassifies 20 of those points as insurance when they are individual savings. 2. 10% IS A FLOOR, NOT A RATE. The National Provident Fund Amendment Act 2019 set a MINIMUM member and employer contribution of 10%. Higher elected rates are lawful and occur. Hard-coding 10% will silently under-remit for employers running an enhanced scheme. 3. THE MINIMUM-WAGE RULE REVERSES THE DEDUCTION. Where an employer pays below the statutory minimum wage — currently WST 3.00 an hour — it must NOT deduct the employee's 10% and must pay the whole 20% itself. This is the single most distinctive rule in Samoan payroll and the one most likely to be missed, because it lives in the contribution rules, not the wage law. Its practical effect is that under-paying the minimum wage doubles the employer's provident-fund cost for that employee. 4. THE ACC LEVY IS COMPUTED IN COMPLETE TALA. Section 52 charges "1 sene for every complete tala of wages". Fractions of a tala are discarded before the levy is applied, so a straight 1% of gross to the sene will not match the statutory figure. The SNPF contribution has no equivalent rounding rule in the material read, so the two charges do not share a base computation. 5. TWO DIFFERENT LATE-PAYMENT REGIMES, ONE DAILY AND ONE MONTHLY. SNPF: due on the 7th day after month end, with a 2% per month surcharge if unpaid 21 days after month end. ACC: section 52A charges 1/20 of one per cent (0.05%) for each day or part of a day after the expiration of 7 days from the date the wage was paid, where levies are unpaid 14 days after they become payable, with a WST 1 minimum and rounding up to the next whole tala. Over a month the ACC surcharge is roughly 1.5% — comparable in size but accruing daily, so being a week late on ACC already costs money while SNPF has not yet triggered. 6. THE SNPF DUE DATE AND THE SNPF PENALTY DATE ARE DIFFERENT DATES. Payment is due on day 7 after month end but the surcharge bites at day 21. An employer paying on day 15 is late but unpenalised. Do not model day 21 as the due date. 7. NEITHER CHARGE HAS A CEILING. Both run on the whole of wages. Do not import an insurable-earnings cap. 8. SNPF REACHES EMPLOYEES WORKING ABROAD. The Fund's own eligibility rule covers "any person who is employed in Samoa OR ABROAD by an employer having its office in Samoa". A Samoan employer posting staff overseas does not thereby leave the scheme. 9. ACC COVER IS NOT CONFINED TO THE WORKPLACE. The scheme is a no-fault personal injury scheme, so the 1% + 1% is not the equivalent of an employers' liability or workers' compensation premium and there is no industry risk-rating or assessment class to look up. 10. THE 10% RATE HAS BEEN IN FORCE SINCE 1 JULY 2021, BUT WAS NOT ENFORCED UNTIL 1 JULY 2022. The Fund deferred enforcement twice because of the pandemic. Historic records for 2021-22 may therefore legitimately show lower contributions without being non-compliant at the time; do not retro-apply 10% to that window when reconciling. SUB-NATIONAL VARIATION: none. Both charges apply uniformly across Upolu, Savai'i and the smaller islands; there is no district or village payroll charge and no industry differentiation. WHAT WE DO NOT PUT A NUMBER ON: I put no number on the following, deliberately. THE VOLUNTARY MEMBER MINIMUM. The Fund accepts voluntary members who are not in employment (it names church ministers, farmers and fishermen) at "a minimum set by the Fund from time to time". That minimum is not published on the pages read and is not served. THE ACC LEVY PAYMENT DUE DATE. Section 52(2) leaves the manner and time of payment to regulations, or failing regulations to what the Corporation determines and may publish by notice in the Samoa Gazette or the Savali. No such notice was obtained, so no ACC due date is served as a determined value. What the Act itself fixes is the surcharge trigger: unpaid 14 days after becoming payable, with the surcharge running from 7 days after the wage was paid. THE PRECISE SECTION OF THE SNPF ACT FIXING THE 10%. The Fund cites sections 19, 22, 50, 51 and 52 for employer record-keeping duties, but the contribution-rate section is not identified on the pages read, and the National Provident Fund Act and its 2019 amending Act were not opened. The rate is served on the Government of Samoa's own current statement and its own press release announcing the amendment. THE PENALTY-UNIT VALUE. Section 52 offences carry a fine "not exceeding 50 penalty units"; the tala value of a penalty unit was not established and is not served. SOURCING CAVEATS, STATED PLAINLY: the ACC levy rates, the complete-tala rule, the surcharge mechanics and the offence provisions are read directly from the text of the Accident Compensation Act 1989, sections 52 and 52A. The SNPF rates, the minimum-wage rule, the due date and the 2% monthly surcharge are taken from the Government of Samoa's own service page and its own press release on the National Provident Fund Amendment Act 2019 — official government publications, but not the statute itself. The Samoa National Provident Fund's own website was restructured and several previously published contribution pages now return 404; the eligibility and employer-duty material was read from the Fund's current Members Guide and Employers Guide, which do not restate the percentage. Because the rate is carried on the government service page rather than in a document I read from the Act, re-verify it against a Fund publication when one is republished. TAX TREATMENT: whether the employee's SNPF contribution or ACC levy is deductible for Samoan income tax is deliberately not asserted — it was not verified against the Income Tax Act.

Get it programmatically

curl https://ausref.dev/v1/ws/social-contributions
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History:    curl https://ausref.dev/v1/ws/social-contributions/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://ausref.dev/provenance/ws/social-contributions

Other Samoa series: policy interest rate · VAGST standard rate (Value Added Goods and Services Tax) · VAGST registration threshold · National minimum wage (hourly) · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Company income tax rate · Withholding tax rates · Court-rule interest on judgment debts · Personal income tax rates

The same figure elsewhere: Solomon Islands · Tonga · Vanuatu · Australia · Fiji · all 8